Yeah !!! I'm now officially Unemployed !!!

Yes, they do. It's called Kouseinenkin, and just like US Social Security, I'll never see it. As for US taxes in Japan, it's only after $X0,000.00 per year. Most people don't hit it, but after getting shit-canned last year, I went over and then some. You have to declare your income every year, whether you make under the foreign earned income exclusion or over it. That requires a 1040 and a 2555. Yakumo is English - he doesn't have to do this. US is the only country that has bullshit like this.

I did save a fortune by filing jointly this year though. Marriage has already paid for itself.

 

That's right. Being British has it's advantages in Japan when it comes to tax. I'm now paying voluntary National Insurance to the UK because the Japanese system just can't be trusted. What this means is that if I ever go back to the UK i'LL STILL BE Able to use the public health service etc. Plus no matter where I live in the world I'll still get my British state pension. The even better thing is that if I would be living in the UK I'd have to pay in the region of 335 pound per year but since 2000 the British and Japanese goverments made some sort of deal which alows me to get away with only paying 106.60 pound a year. Not bad indeed I'd say.


Yakumo

 

Very interesting discussion. I intend to try my luck in Japan one day, but the Brazilian foreigns are not so well welcome like American and English foreigns. All we got are the shity industry jobs...


PD

 

Say... does said bullshit apply to all American citizens making money abroad? Even though I have never lived in America and was born in Holland I am a US citizen, and this sounds pretty worrying :smt009

 

Yes, it sure does. You can Google it to find out more. Technically, you're supposed to at least declare your income each year. If you make under the income exclusion for each year though, it doesn't really matter. Before you go back to America, you can just fill out all your forms since you were 18, mail them in, and since you don't owe America any tax, you don't pay any interest.

Re: Brazillians in Japan:
There's actually a pretty large population of Brazillians here, so it can't be too bad.

 

Social Security in the US is bullshit. Big Brother takes my money (which I could invest and make far more than Social Security will ever give me) to provide for the idiots who can't learn to save for retirement. A lot of people my age don't even think it will be around when it is time for us to retire. It's never going to change either. They call it the third rail (meaning if you touch it you get fried) of politics. No politician will go near it because the largest voting block in the US is senior citizens collecting (surprise surprise) Social Security. Why should they care anyways. Congress has their own very generous pension plan. If that doesn’t say the system is fucked I don't know what does

 

What about the fact that our leaders aren't really elected by popular vote, but by a smaller group of people (the Electoral College) because our founding fathers thought that allowing the population to select the President was a reckless action?

 

I don't think that they saw it so much as wreckless action but that the country was still new and needed to get it's berings. At the time the Found Father decided that there had yet to even be a census yet.

 

You may be right. However, don't you think over 200 years is enough time to get our bearings and have some sort of stability take hold?

 

Because its not a huge issue... Its becomethe norm that the college votes for the winners and even then to change would take many many years and alot of money. Too much to go into to!

 

The electoral Col. is agreat system thats worked well for a couple of hundred years...the most populous states get more electoral votes...at some point (1 election out of every single election we've had) it was bound to be an issue...getting rid of it after one mishap is like cutting of a limb after it cramps one time. :smt040

 

Things are going ok with the system we have now. It has its losers. You just have to be smart enough to not be the loser in this system.


As for social security. Yes, you could invest that money into the stockmarket, etc. However, I'm very sure that our generation will actually benefit from Social Security, the way it was meant to be used in its conception.

Overall, you just have to be rich to live a nice life. Or have good friends in every industry to get freebies from them.

 

Not to veer this TOO far off topic, but yeah, the Electoral College is a beautiful idea if you want to prevent your president from being elected by the actual voting populace while at the same time wasting untold amounts of government money on said voting sham while the leaders are really elected by less than 250 people. :smt120 I mean, it's a GREAT idea if you're some sort of fascist state or something, but we're one of those, what do you call them..... AH! A democracy! Of course, with the current election system, we're just one step above some of the cold war Communist countries - they got to vote, but there was only once candidate for any position. :smt017

 

I agree that the Electoral College is outdated and should probably be abolished but I'm also not that worried about it either. What worries me more is the political parties running to the courts every time their canidate loses.

 

Perhaps, but we (Generation X) will be fucked. The Baby Boomers may very well use it all, and the government may very well do away with it.

In other words, you should invest several hundred grand in a retirement plan over the course of your working career (18-65) and hope that it gains value. Otherwise, you'll be out on the street when you're old, pending your offspring help you.

 

All in all, the game of life, there are winners and losers. If you lose, and you are still alive, get back in there and try to win. Thats what I have to say.

 

We must have different rule books.

 

Actually, the US isn't a democracy. It's a federal republic. Representatives are required to uphold the constitution, not enforce majority rule. Democracy is where every citizen has a direct say in the running of the country, and where the majority decision is the one that is chosen. Neither of these are in effect in the US: you elect representatives who have to uphold the constitution, not represent wishes. As far as I understand it, anyway.

What worries me far more is when political parties lose and are still given control of the country. If legal action is the only way to resolve such glaring deficiencies in the electoral system, then so be it.